At least three medical associations promoted a vaccine that protects against a sexually transmitted virus using funds provided by the vaccine's manufacturer, according to a new analysis being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The groups—the American College Health Association, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists—promoted Gardasil using virtually the same strategy that Merck employed in its marketing campaign for the vaccine, the analysis concluded.
President Obama's advisers have acknowledged that they were unprepared for the intraparty rift that occurred over the fate of a proposed public health insurance program. Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill. But the White House finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight, according to the Washington Post.
President Obama, struggling to discredit bogus charges against his healthcare overhaul, soon could face another obstacle due to a plan to trim the federal subsidy for a program used by nearly a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries. The Medicare Advantage program pays insurance companies a hefty premium to enroll senior citizens and provide their medical services through managed-care networks. But whether the higher payments are worth it is a matter of dispute, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times.
Republican opposition to Congressional healthcare proposals has led Democrats to see little chance of cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks. Democrats said that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans' purposely strident tone against healthcare legislation during this month's Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.
Louisiana-hired architects unveiled their latest conceptual designs for a proposed $1.2 billion academic medical center in New Orleans and drew criticism because their plan envisions six city blocks of parking between downtown and the new hospital. Even supporters of the hospital project questioned the wisdom of turning half of a 35-acre footprint into a landscaped parking lot that would effectively split the city's medical corridor, cutting off the new hospital and the planned adjacent Veterans Affairs hospital from Tulane Medical Center.
Hospital balance sheets hit historic lows last year, but a financial analysis shows a rebound. Hospitals have recovered substantially in the first quarter, reflecting modest improvements and stabilization in the financial markets, according to the Thomson Reuters' study examining 522 hospitals' financial data from second quarter 2005 through the first quarter of this year.
Emory and Piedmont hospitals have filed lawsuits to prevent Gwinnett Medical Center from starting to perform open-heart surgeries at its Lawrenceville, GA, facility. The lawsuits aim to reverse a state approval of Gwinnett's open-heart program by the commissioner of the state Department of Community Health.
The University of Chicago transplant evaluation program has brought state-of-the-art screening and treatment to Evanston Hospital, providing nearly everything but the actual surgery for organ recipients and candidates. An outgrowth of the 1-year-old partnership between University of Chicago, where the surgery would be performed, and NorthShore University HealthSystem, the program will assess potential recipients for heart, lung, liver, pancreas, and multi-organ transplants.
A collection of little-known insurance cooperatives around the country is winning attention as being key to a possible health reform compromise in Washington. But while some of their practices have cut costs and serve as models for change, questions remain about their ability to transform American healthcare. Specialists said that their patient-controlled structure and nonprofit status are not what will ultimately prove most useful, but instead it is the way they pay doctors and care for patients that holds the most potential for savings.
Nearly half of Americans believe that a proposed overhaul of the healthcare system means the government will decide when to stop providing medical treatment to senior citizens, according to polling by NBC News. Some 45% said they believe the plan is likely to include such a provision that has become known as "death panels" despite bipartisan efforts to dispel the idea. Although 50% of respondents said they believe the bill was unlikely to include such a provision, the deep split over the veracity of "death panels" underscores the difficulty Democrats have had in selling their overhaul to the public, notes the Wall Street Journal.
